Are matching NIC's necessary?

[Plef5204]

I just moved from a Linksys WRT610N v.1 to a Netgear WNDR3700. Originally I was using a DWA-552 from DLink, which had weak reception.....and I found it less reliable when I moved from WinXP to Win7....so I picked up a Linksys WMP600N.

Some people have told me it's important to match your wireless card to your router....and then other people have said it doesn't make a difference.

Is there any kind of information available from actual testing? Would there be any benefit to changing to a Netgear wireless NIC?

Plef5204

 

[00Roush]

To my knowledge matching the NIC brand to the Router brand is not necessary and should not really provide a difference in performance. Technically if a router is 802.11b/g/n it has to comply with the 802.11 standard and all NICs that comply with the 802.11 standard would work the same. With all of that said there might be some cases were matching a brand could make a difference. Some companies support the major standards but also might implement a proprietary setup that could improve performance if all components are of their brand.

00Roush

 

[stevech]

But there are options in 11n and supposedly the client and Access point (WiFi router) negotiate a least common denominator. The results of this seem to be hidden from users. No options in 11a/b/g

 

[thiggins]

In the early days of Draft 11n, it was more important to match router and client chipsets. These days it's near impossible to do and provides little to no benefit.

That said, the choice of client can influence performance. See 802.11n Adapter Roundup.